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"Hark, the Glad Sound!" is a fine Christological hymn; it uses the Old Testament text as Christ himself did. Stanza 1 speaks about the Savior's coming. Stanzas 2 and 3 quote the Isaiah and Luke passages about Christ's mission to release those in prison, to heal the wounded, and to enrich the poor. Stanza 4 concludes with a glad response of welcome and praise to our Savior.

Philip Doddridge (b. London, England, 1702; d. Lisbon, Portugal, 1751) wrote this text in 1735 with the heading "Christ's message from Luke 4:18-19" (where Christ quotes from Isaiah 61:1-2). The text was revised and published in the 1745 and the 1781 editions of the Scottish Translations and Paraphrases. It was also published in Job Orton's Hymns, Founded on Various Texts in the Holy Scriptures (1755). As is customary in modern hymnals, the Psalter Hymnal prints four (1, 3, 5, and 7) of the original seven stanzas.

Doddridge belonged to the Non-conformist Church (not associated with the Church of England). Its members were frequently the focus of discrimination. Offered an education by a rich patron to prepare him for ordination in the Church of England Doddridge chose instead to remain in the Non-conformist Church. For twenty years he pastored a poor parish in Northampton, where he opened an academy for training Non-conformist ministers and taught most of the subjects himself. Doddridge suffered from tuberculosis, and when Lady Huntington, one of his patrons, offered to finance a trip to Lisbon for his health, he is reputed to have said, "I can as well go to heaven from Lisbon as from Northampton." He died in Lisbon soon after his arrival. Doddridge wrote some four hundred hymn texts, generally to accompany his sermons. These hymns were published posthumously in Hymns, Founded on Various Texts in the Holy Scriptures (1755); relatively few are still sung today.

Liturgical Use:
During Advent; as a processional for Palm Sunday.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook

Tune Information:

RICHMOND (also known as CHESTERFIELD) is a florid tune originally written by Thomas Haweis (PHH 270) and published in his collection Carmina Christo (1792). Samuel Webbe, Jr., adapted and shortened the tune and published it in his Collection of Psalm Tunes (1808). It was reprinted in 1853 in Webbe's Psalmody. Webbe named the tune after Rev. Leigh Richmond, a friend of Haweis's. The CHESTERFIELD name comes from Lord Chesterfield, a statesman who frequently visited Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, for whom Haweis worked as a chaplain.

At its opening the tune has a "rocket" motif radiating a sense of confidence. With its various revisions the melody has lost its original florid character, but the harmonization (from Hymns Ancient and Modern Revised, 1950) provides strength and vigor, and the descant by Craig S. Lang (PHH 253) introduces another florid line for festive singing of stanza 4.

Sing stanza 1 in unison and stanzas 2 and 3 with jubilant accompaniment. Because stanza 4 is the only one directed to Christ, it should receive a different musical treat¬ment than the other stanzas. Strong unison singing, a full accompaniment, and the use of the vocal or instrumental descant will help the "glad hosannas. . . ring."

Like his father Samuel, Sr. (PHH 112), Samuel Webbe, Jr. (b. London, 1770; d. London, 1843), was very active in both sacred and secular music. Together they published A Collection of Motets and Antiphons (1792). He was active as organist in Liverpool and London at both Unitarian and Roman Catholic churches.